Trove

Played in long sessions, Trove can quickly grow mind-numbingly dull and repetitive, and its performance issues can sometimes be a pain. But played in short sessions, it's a decently fun way to pass the time, either by building structures, battling bad guys, or experimenting with new classes.

Trove generally mixes elements of Minecraft and traditional MMOGs well, but it grows tedious in the late game.

Trove is a game with huge potential. The free to play open-world dice game has captivated many players who form a welcoming community. The game is dominated by a huge amount of items and resources, which you will have to spend a huge amount of time and patience to obtain. In this game, you'll always be motivated to create, acquire and upgrade. Unfortunately, there are some downsides. Even after years of development, the developers have failed to make the servers more stable, so you will often encounter lags or complete game crashes. Also, new updates don't come out as often as they used to.

All in all, I was expecting more from Trove Geode. More lairs and bosses, more community-designed loot and masks, and more sprawling adventures. Instead, I received a welcome distraction from the usual Trove activities, one that was not my cup of tea after a few hours but could be rewarding and relaxing for those seeking less hectic Trove tasks. Trove Geode was an interesting experience. I enjoyed the user-crafted loot drops and the Bomber Royale mode was a lot of fun. The caverns felt like a slog and didn’t offer enough engaging tasks to keep me at the grind. I’m still figuring out how to expertly pace myself between Bomber Royale and the Geode world cave exploration. The sweet spot I found was in balancing the two.

Trove is an MMORPG that isn't worth anyone's time, let alone their money

Great in short bursts, maybe an hour, as you can have fun and make a little progress, complete a challenge, and see your experience progress. Maybe two at a push to run some Shadow Tower, or work on the Club World. But those meaty, satisfying online experiences need a heavyweight MMO to deliver them and, for all its colourful charm, Trove just isn't it.

Trove still doesn't have nearly as much structure as you'd expect from an MMO. The complete absence of story and story-based quests means that only players who really dig mining and building will get much long-term value from this one. Leaving out the story and story quests is a big missed opportunity to capitalize on what makes MMOs so special.

Trove has left me feeling a little torn; whilst I certainly had plenty of fun with the old-school combat mechanics and multiplayer adventuring, it didn’t take too long for the repetitive nature to drag things down. It’s not that there aren’t plenty of things to discover and loot to find, but rather that the gameplay alone didn’t offer enough of an incentive to entice me to stick with the game for the long term and uncover all of these things. For a game which demands hours of your time, that was a bit of a problem for me. It might not be the same for other players though and I have no doubt that Trove’s RPG/world-building hybrid will certainly tick plenty of boxes for other players, but I’ve already found myself moving on to other titles. Still, it’s free to play so there’s no risk to trying the game – just don’t expect to be blown away by what Trove offers.

the core mechanics are identical from world to world. Navigate, murder, collect the loot.

I think Trove is a solid game for kids, as well as up and coming MMO players. It's a game that is a wonderful upgrade from the Minecraft world, but pushes players a bit further with gaming concepts and design that most of us have experienced for a good portion of our gaming lives. I'm sure that it will keep growing as a game and hopefully, audience willing, garnish new add-ons and design that push it into a more rewarding experience that will legitimize it as a go-to MMORPG for a wider audience.